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Last week, my husband was out of town for most of the week for work. The good thing is he was in Colorado and got to see his parents. The bad thing is he was gone for the better part of the week. His travel has just recently picked up and while I will be the first to say it’s sometimes nice to have the place to myself, I really missed him. It was also our anniversary weekend and I was ready to have a weekend of just us.

But not before we got our long runs over with.

This week, I was on a ‘down’ week, since I had previously ran 14 miles. But Jerry was running 16 miles. Whew. We decided to do these runs on Saturday before we headed to Orlando for the weekend. So at 5:30 in the morning, we were at the park and ready to go. Jerry started his miles while I drove to set out Gatorade for us 4 miles from the starting point. He went 1 mile south then came back up north, hitting the water stop at 5 miles and at 11 miles. I would hit it once when I got to 4 miles. I was back and started running at 6 a.m. I just got a Gymboss timer (in my favorite color, orange) to keep my intervals so I wouldn’t be looking at my watch all the time. I set it for 3 min run, 1 min walk and off I went. I really liked having a timer because I couldn’t negotiate with myself. Often I say “Well maybe I’ll take an extra 30 sec. walk break”, but I didn’t want to reset my timer so I stayed with the interval. I kept a steady 13 min pace, my target training pace, throughout the entire run. I usually slow down at the end of my work out so this was great for me.

However, during the last week, I have felt like I needed to pop my lower back or stretch as my lower back/upper buttock has that ‘pinched nerve’ sort of feeling. I thought it was just something I might have tightened during a workout so I left it alone. But a week later and it’s still here. What’s strange is it mostly comes on when I am walking not running.

So I did what every American does and consulted Dr. Google. It seems it may be the beginnings of piriformis. Basically piriformis is caused by weak hip muscles and hamstrings and the muscle that is contracted is pressing down on the sciatic nerve. Here’s the video that I used to self diagnose.

I also called my doctor and made an appointment for this week so I hope to get some clarity. Let’s hope it’s not too serious and that I can keep training. I took Sunday and today off as rest days hoping it would lessen (it did not). This week I have 17 miles to run on Sunday and hope to make it.

When Jerry came back from his business trip on Friday, he said he had a gift for me. Jerry and I are usually not ‘gift’ people. We’re fortunate to be able to purchase what we need and what we want pretty easily. Still, we often buy things that we can enjoy together. While I am still very much a girl and appreciate jewelry and perfume, more thoughtful gifts are always more meaningful.

We had talked about being even more active outdoors, even trying camping. 6 years ago I wouldn’t even utter the word and now I want to go camping soon. So Jerry surprised me with this beauty from REI.

I’m very excited about going on a 1-3 day hike with this soon.

To finish the celebratory weekend we finished our 2 days in Orlando by seeing the Marc Anothny concert. As mentioned before, we won tickets from fellow blogger Laurita on Espresso Con Leche. Marc is such a talented singer, something I never thought when I heard his songs in English. In Spanish, he is a salsa superstar.Our time in Florida has made me appreciate salsa music (not traditional in Mexico) and I enjoy dancing with Jerry. We’ve been wanting to see him for years, and we did this weekend! The Club Level tickets also allowed us to dance!